Scooters become the top priority for Suzuki

Snapshot: Four out of six new two-wheelers from Suzuki will be scooters

The Financial Year 2013-14 changed many perceptions and norms, made new players emerge and few giants were seen worried too. All because of the trend the Scooter industry has witnessed in the recent times. It was the same reason TVS was able to upset Bajaj in terms of domestic sales and take the number three spot. Now the latest one to encash the trend is Suzuki Motorcycle India Ltd. (SMIL) - the two-wheeler wing of the Japanese giant. Suzuki as of now stands at 4th place in the scooter market after Honda, Hero and TVS. If the numbers Suzuki is trying to achieve are to be taken seriously, there might be a closely fought battle between TVS and Suzuki for the third spot in the ever increasing scooter market.

To make the situation favourable for them, SMIL has decided to launch four new scooters and just two motorcycles in the near future. As of now, SMIL has 12% of the scooter market with its products like Access, Swish and Let's. Suzuki has also refused to enter the 150cc scooter segment and will continue to focus on the 100 - 125cc 'family' segment. Suzuki hopes to increase its sales from 3.5 lakhs per annum to 4.5-5 lakhs in a few years.

As we have said on a number of occasions, scooters formed roughly 25% of the total sales in FY 2013-14 which is expected to go up to 30% this year. Thanks to Honda's success so far, almost every other two-wheeler manufacturer (except Bajaj) is trying to make it big here and Suzuki doesn't want to lag behind.

On this, Mr. Atul Gupta, Executive Vice President, SMIL said, "We are looking at hitting 7.5 lakh units in production and sales in 3 years and ideally the mix should be 35% motorcycle and 65% scooter sales. Currently the mix is 80:20 in favour of scooters."